Stormseeker: Nexus of Regrets
by Keolah
Summary: Lifetimes of regret come together across space and time. Conclusion to the Stormseeker Saga.
1. Masks and Symbols

**A/N: This is the conclusion to the Stormseeker Saga. I'd recommend reading at least "Balance of the Force" and "Cycle of Nightmares" first in order for this to make any sense.**

* * *

They're putting up the sign that reads: Elkandu Academy of Manaan. It's a nice school. Comfortable. Peaceful. Roomy enough for expansion.

"There's a lot of former Sith here," Bastila says.

I nod. "We can show them another way. How to use their emotions without being consumed by them. This won't be easy. And I'm afraid I've got a few things I need to take care of before I can settle in here, myself."

"What do you intend to do?" Bastila asks.

"Need to pay a visit to Nar Shaddaa," I say. "I don't really care so much about my own lost mask at this point, but I might be able to find out where Mandalore's mask wound up. Also, I should visit Korriban and lay some ground rules, now that Malak is gone."

Gone. A euphemism, in many cases. But in this case? He's not really dead. Just gone. That's somewhat comforting, really. I don't find any comfort in the idea of 'becoming one with the Force', nor in lingering as a Force ghost. I hope that I don't wind up meeting either fate.

"Heh, and I'm going to bogart the title of Dark Lord of the Sith just so that nobody else can use it," I say.

"I don't think I'd really like to visit either place, but I'll go if you want me along," Bastila says.

I kiss her softly. "It's alright," I say. "I'm sure me and Canderous and HK can handle any problems that might arise. It'd be good to get the school up and running, anyhow. Will you be alright with that?"

Bastila nods. "I feel like I'm a little inexperienced still to be much of a teacher, but there's probably things I can share as well as things I can learn."

"That's the idea," I say with a grin. "I'll be back here soon to teach and learn myself. Do you have any idea how abysmal my telepathy and telekinesis are at the moment? I used to be better at these things, I know I must have. Also... I want to learn how to shoot a gun, and to fly a ship."

"You want to be a pilot?" Bastila says, raising an eyebrow.

"I want to be the best pilot I can be," I say. "If Carth's going to be sticking around for a bit, I'll ask him for pointers."

I don't know how long I have to prepare for the Battle of Yavin. Years? Centuries? Millennia? But when it comes, I want to be ready. They're going to need the best pilot they can get.

* * *

Maybe I should have taken someone else along, as well as or instead of Canderous and HK-47. They primarily suggest solving every problem with violence, and I generally have no trouble considering solving every problem with violence on my own. Ah, well, they're good at shooting things if I need things shot at.

And in this case, I'm seriously considering it. "I can't just grant an audience with the mighty Vogga the Hutt to just anyone!" says the fool guarding the door.

"Are you stupid?" I ask flatly.

"Well, what would it look like if just anyone could walk in and see him?"

"I'm carrying two lightsabers," I point out. "Behind me is a Mandalorian and a combat droid, both of them brandishing heavy blasters and looking like they're itching for any excuse to use them."

"Um... Well, of course you're not just anyone. I'm sure Vogga would be pleased to meet with someone as esteemed and heavily armed as yourself. I hope you're not intending on using those weapons on Vogga himself, but if you are, please remember that I just work here!"

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on murdering anyone today," I comment dryly.

We head in to see the Hutt. I always found Hutts to be rather disgusting, and I don't mean their appearance. Their penchant for slavery and scummy business practices is rather a turn-off, to say the least, and this praticular Hutt doesn't appear to be any different, if the scantily clad human females about are any indication.

"Hmm?" Vogga says. "A Jedi? What business do you have with _me_?"

"I'm not a Jedi," I reply in Huttese. "And I'm not a Sith, either. I'm an Elkandu."

"Elkandu?" Vogga repeats, clearly confused.

"A new sect of Force users," I say. "Let's just say that the Elkandu are more open-minded than the Jedi, and less inclined to violently cut into your profits than the Sith."

"Ah," Vogga says. "Well, in that case, I like the Elkandu already. What do you need?"

"I'm looking for a Rodian by the name of Kaka Oop," I say. "I'm tracking down some stolen property of mine, and I was told you might be able to direct me to him."

"Hmm, yes, Kaka Oop is a member of the Exchange," Vogga says. "I'm not fond of them, and I have some grievances against the one you seek myself. He seems to believe that any person or object left unattended for five minutes is his to sell off as he pleases."

"Do you know where I can find him?" I ask.

"He is a slippery one," Vogga says. "Covers his tracks well. Avoids having any solid evidence of wrongdoing, and vanishes before he can take the blame for anything. But I will help you find him, if you'll help locate some of my own goods that he took as well."

"That sounds fair," I say.

In the end, we wind up laying a trap for Kaka Oop in one of Vogga's warehouses. Rare, unattended valuables that Kaka will not be able to pass up. But not so unattended as he might hope. My team is laying in wait to make sure he doesn't get away.

Sure enough, the Rodian takes the bait. Sneaking in by cover of darkness, thinking no one will see him. What a fool, can't he tell that this is an obvious trap? How is it that he hasn't been caught already?

"End of the line, Kaka Oop," I say, drawing my lightsabers and standing between him and the exit.

"Kaka Oop isn't here!" the Rodian replies.

Suddenly, my vision is filled with a cloud of sickening green gas. Crap, note to self, learn breath control. My vision swims, and I collapse in an instant.

* * *

"Query: Master, are you damaged?"

I rub my head and sit up. My vision is still blurry, but at least I'm conscious again. "I'm fine, I think. What happened? Where's the Rodian?"

"Proud statement: I have captured the filthy meatbag, Master," HK-47 declares.

"You didn't kill him?" I say. "HK, I'm impressed at your restraint."

"Query: You wished to question this meatbag, did you not?" HK-47 says. "Statement: In order to facilitate interrogation, I only maimed the meatbag instead."

"I hate you!" exclaims the Rodian. I blink for a moment and my vision focuses a bit more. I turn to look at his thoroughly mangled body, missing both arms and both legs. They look like they were removed with a lightsaber.

HK-47 hands my red lightsaber back to me. "Query: Are you pleased with my handiwork, Master?"

I laugh lightly and take the lightsaber back. "Well, he's certainly not going to be running away or pulling out anymore poison gas grenades now."

"Hate hate hate hate hate!" the Rodian cries.

"You," I say, leaning close to him, "are going to answer my questions."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because," I say. "I'm an Elkandu. My Force powers are fueled by emotion. I am capable of great feats of healing, for example. But in order to heal someone, I must be very happy with them. I could even heal the likes of _you_, for instance. But only if I were very, very happy with you. So, you really want to make me happy, don't you?"

"Y- yes," the Rodian replies. "I'll tell you whatever you want! Just please don't kill me!"

"First off, tell me your name," I ask. "Are you Kaka Oop?"

He nods. "I'm Kaka Oop."

"Let's start with Mandalore's mask," I say. "Do you know where it is?"

"What?" Kaka says. "No, I never had Mandalore's mask!" He mutters, "I did look for it, though. But I couldn't find it. It must've been hidden pretty well."

"Alright, then," I say. I didn't really expect him to know that one. "Then I'm going to ask you about Revan's mask. Where is it?"

"I don't know!" Kaka says. "I don't have it anymore!"

"So you _did_ take it," I say.

"Um... yeah," Kaka says. "Oh, you have his armor, too? If you had them both, you could do a great impersonation of him..."

"Who did you sell it to?" I demand.

I grow impatient with him, at how slow he is to answer. In a fit of rage, I rip the knowledge from his mind, and leave him there as a drooling husk. It's only after I get back to the Ebon Hawk that I calm down and think I went too far.

* * *

It's easy to find my old mask again now that I know where to look, and commit a firm application of violence. I find it in the collection of a fallen Jedi, a would-be Sith who seeks to make up for in knowledge what he lacked in raw power.

"Mercy, mercy please... I meant no harm in it, my lord!" he pleads. "Had I known you still lived, I would have returned it at once!"

I cut him down with a burst of electricity shooting from my fingertips and step over his body to stand before the mask. The old Mandalorian mask that I'd picked up from a fallen warrior who had once tried to do something good. I take it up in my hands... and my mind swims...

I believed in something once. I believed that every life mattered. That everything I did had to count for something.

But now, it's come to this. It seems to me that it no longer matters who lives or dies. Who wins or loses.

_I want to find an end to the never-ending cycle. But I cannot die. The only truth death is to forget. _

_And so... I will forget._

Have I done this before? Will I do this again? How many times has this cycle continued?

And for all this, I have forgotten my original purpose. It seemed, eventually, like it no longer mattered whether I saved my family. Whether I gained god-like power and bested Sardill.

_Failure._

How did it come to this?

Why do I keep giving it all up just when I've started to really accomplish something?

Because I no longer feel like I'm accomplishing anything. Because I lose sight of why I was doing it in the first place.

I wanted it to end. I wanted to rest. But I could not rest. So I chose the next best thing. To start fresh.

And then, not content with that, I managed to get myself to forget every time I died. I don't remember the details anymore. But I know that I wanted it, more than anything.

And yet, not content with forgetting, I later set things up to where I would remember things in dreams. Unfortunately, the things that I remembered came forth with no rhyme or reason, no context and no semblance of how they fit into everything else.

I have been a monumental fool.

_So tired. I want to rest._

Have I forgotten what it means to be alive? Have I forgotten the value of existence? The things that I clung to, and held so precious once?

Have I forgotten the rainbow after the storm?

I don't even feel the floor as I hit the ground, and darkness takes me.


	2. Hope and Regret

I regret.

I think I regret everything. How many regrets can one man carry?

I wake, and blink up at the sunny sky. Two suns. Desert. Tatooine? How did I wind up here?

And then I see him, with a couple of vaguely familiar droids. It's my brother. It's Luke Skywalker.

I realize in a flash of insight what must have happened. The power of regret propelled me across space and time. I regret the death of my brother, of the failure of the Rebellion and that I could do nothing to help them. And so, I wound up here.

It occurs to me that my power was never about dying at all. For so long, for as long as I can remember and even before, it seems like I've thought it was merely some form of immortality, that dying was what triggered my Time powers. And yet, here I am, looking across the dunes of Tatooine at a brother who won't be born for an untold amount of time, and I hadn't died to get here.

There's so much that I thought I knew, but I really know nothing.

I'm still wearing my armor. My lightsabers remain at my belt. And that mask is still in my hands. I look down at it with a touch of sorrow. How could my path have become so twisted? I tried to do good, once. I tried to do what was right. But I'm not very good at that, apparently. There's too much anger in me.

I sigh and put the mask away in my pack. I don't need it anymore. I don't think I ever needed it.

"And who might you be, in that getup of yours?" says the middle-aged man at the moisture farm as I approach. I know his name - Owen Lars. "You some sort of mercenary?" He eyes the lightsabers at my belt suspiciously and makes an interesting and distasteful expression, but makes no comment on them.

I think on that question for a moment. "I'll admit I have fought for money in the past. Right now, though, I'm just a tired old warrior looking for... something. I'm not even really sure what I'm looking for. Answers? Peace? A home? Family?"

Owen grunts. "Name's Owen Lars. You?"

"Lexen Skywalker," I reply quietly.

Owen looks surprised. "Didn't know there were any other Skywalkers around."

"I'm Luke's older brother."

"How's that possible? You look almost forty, yourself," Owen says skeptically, eyeing me suspiciously.

I shrug. "I've had a hard life. But really, it's a long story."

"Eh. Come on in, then, I suppose. Just don't you be filling the boy's head up with tales of adventure."

I give him a crooked smile. "Believe me, I'd rather not even think about it, never mind talk about it."

* * *

Luke's cleaning up the new droids, and I'm doing a bit of discreet research to try to figure out just when I am. How far out of time did I wind up?

I find records of Darth Revan. Of the Mandalorian War. The Jedi Civil War. It was... almost four thousand years ago. And there's no trace of any mention of the Elkandu. I don't know whether they merely failed without my guidance, or if I've wound up in another timeline where none of that happened. I can't even be sure if the one named Darth Revan here was even _me_.

Thousands of years later, it seems like nothing I did even mattered. It's a humbling thought. I was the greatest warrior of the time, a charismatic and powerful leader, but did it really matter? If I hadn't been Darth Revan, someone else might have been instead. Male or female, light or dark, it doesn't matter. It could have been anyone under that mask.

"Looking up ancient history?" Owen asks, peering over my shoulder.

"Takes my mind off the present," I say with a shrug.

Luke comes back from cleaning the droids. He thinks that they belonged to someone named Obi-Wan Kenobi. That name should be familiar to me, but I can't quite grasp the details. I'm forever chasing memories, like a kath hound trying to grab its own tail.

I don't know the details of the impending attack, or even whether or not it's going to happen at all in this timeline, but I have a dreadful suspicion that it's going to be soon. Very likely tonight, I think. I've made sure to catch a quick afternoon nap, but come nightfall, I stay awake, wary and alert.

And yet, no attack comes this night. Was I mistaken? Was my paranoia unjustified? Or was it merely that my timing was off? I know it must be coming soon, but I really can't just stay awake all the time. I'd already been awake for several hours before jumping into this time frame.

"Luke is missing," Owen says. "Where did he go? And he took those two droids with him, too!"

I blink at him wearily. "I don't know."

"You didn't have anything to do with this, did you?" Owen asks.

I shake my head. "I've hardly even said a word to him since I got here. But if you want, I'll see if I can track him down."

Owen pauses for a moment, then just gives a sharp nod in acquiescence. And as tired as I am, I have to make sure my brother is alright. I set off into the desert, letting the Force guide my steps, but I don't have a vehicle and Luke is a long way ahead of me. Damn everything. Some ways away from the farm, I sit down in the cover of some rocks for a short rest, and before I even realize it, I'm asleep.

* * *

I wake, blinking at the sunlight in my face, and abruptly realize that the suns have moved since I sat down here. Springing to my feet, I rush back toward the farm in a panic, lightsabers in my hands without even thinking about it.

Too late. Too damned late. Black smoke twists into the air from the charred ruins of the farm, and burnt corpses lay in from of the farmstead. I am such a fucking idiot. Luke... where is Luke? Was he here? Or is he in trouble off in the desert somewhere?

The sound of a speeder approaching rumbles across the desert, and I spin around warily toward the noise. Luke steps out, along with an old man who seems vaguely familiar, and I lower my blades with a sigh of relief. My brother is alive and safe.

"Lexen, what happened here?" Luke wonders, staring in shock at the scene of devastation.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't here," I say, lowering my head in shame and putting my lightsabers away. "I would have stopped them if I could. But Uncle Owen sent me off to look for you. I just got back myself..."

I make brief introductions with the old man, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and get into the speeder along with them, heading off to Mos Eisley spaceport. A thought occurs to me that Luke was fine on his own. Was it my interference that changed events enough that he was killed? Perhaps I was the one who had gone out with the droids instead, leaving him at the farm during the attack.

I don't really like this train of thought. I can't second guess myself. What am I even doing here? All I can do is follow this line of events and see where it goes. Maybe this is exactly where and when I need to be to find the answers I have long been searching for.

Staying in the background, I allow Luke to lead the way, quietly playing the part of a mercenary bodyguard and trying not to interfere too much. We book passage on a ship, the Millennium Falcon, and embark with people shooting at our backs.

Once aboard the ship and safely in transit, Obi-Wan takes me aside to ask me some pointed questions that he'd clearly been holding back on previously. "I saw those lightsabers of yours," he says quietly. "Who are you?"

"Lexen Skywalker," I reply. "And before you ask, it's a long story, and even I don't know the half of it. I'll try to explain it if you want, but I'm not sure that we have time for it right now, unfortunately."

"Perhaps you could summarize it, then?" Obi-Wan says.

I give a bittersweet smile, and say, "I'm Luke's half-brother, a time traveler, and very likely from an alternate timeline. I just spent some decades in a time thousands of years in the past, and I'm not even sure how these different timelines even all fit together."

Obi-Wan stares at me. "That possibly posed more questions than it answered."

"It'll have to do," I say with a shrug. "I'd appreciate if you'd just go and do whatever you would be doing if I weren't here. I really don't want to interfere with the timeline and screw things up somehow." I sigh.

"Very well," Obi-Wan says reluctantly.

I settle in quietly for the ride, sitting back and watching Luke practice with a lightsaber. And then... a terrible wave of darkness washes over me, echoing through the Force. Something terrible has just happened. _A billion voices cry out in pain, and are suddenly silenced._ Obi-Wan staggers back, putting a hand to his forehead.

Was this something that I should have stopped? No, I must not second-guess myself.

I try to meditate quietly as we come in to the Alderaan system. I must not allow my anger to get the better of me. That's what got me into trouble so many times before.

Alderaan was destroyed, and we emerge into the space debris that is all that remains of so many lives. But there's no time to dwell on that. An enormous battle station like a small moon starts to tractor us in.

_The Death Star_.

I know how it can be destroyed. I remember that much. Is Luke really a good enough pilot to succeed where the Rebels failed? I don't know. He didn't live long enough for me to find out. Is that what he was always meant to do? Is there a meaning to events at all? If someone didn't stop the Death Star at Yavin, would someone else have done so somewhere along the line? Would the Empire have eventually fallen apart from infighting or financial difficulties?

How can anyone say that any particular timeline is how things were _meant_ to be, how they were _supposed_ to be, when there are so many different possible outcomes? Can one really say that the life of one person, even one planet, is more important than any other?

Once aboard, I head off with my brother and his new companions to assist in whatever hairbrained quest they might have taken upon themselves. Rescuing a princess, alright, fine, I can go for that. It doesn't go quite as smoothly as one might hope, but we manage, and head back for the docking area to make our escape.

A dark presense. Nearby. Very close by. Through an opening to the side of the docking bay, Obi-Wan has his lightsaber out and is fighting a man in black armor wielding a red lightsaber.

I recognize this man. _Darth Vader_. Dark Lord of the Sith.

He cuts down Obi-Wan in cold blood before my eyes. The old Jedi's robes crumple to the floor, empty.

He... killed Obi-Wan? He just killed Obi-Wan? Was this how things were really supposed to go?

No, fuck that. Fuck whatever was "supposed" to be. My lightsabers are in my hand in the blink of an eye, and I charge. The stormtroopers shoot at me with their blasters, but I can deflect them.

Obi-Wan mentioned something about Vader. I'm not sure anymore whether it was in this life or countless lifetimes ago, and I don't think it matters.

_He betrayed and murdered your father._

A flash of hot rage roars through my veins like molten lava. Electricity crackles around me in an enormous deadly aura, striking any who come within ten meters of me.

I have a brief reprieve from incoming fire as the stormtroopers who are too close to me die rapidly, and the ones who are further away stumble back in surprise. But it isn't to last. They start firing at me again in earnest, but now I'm in a fully aggressive stance and no longer thinking to block their incoming attacks.

Darkness takes me.

* * *

I wake on the Millennium Falcon, and let off a small burst of uncontrolled electricity. Taking a deep breath, I try to calm myself, steady myself. I am the one in control here. I am the eye of the storm.

The Death Star tractors us in again, and as the others go off to perform whatever heroics they have in mind, I slip away on my own. If there's really any destiny meant for them, if there's really any meaning to existence, then they don't need my help with whatever they're doing. Me... I'm going to find Darth Vader. I want to _kill him_. It's not my destiny? I don't care. That's the path I have chosen. Bloody revenge. I was never a very good Jedi, and I'm not going to become one now. My father would be terribly disappointed in me.

How am I to find him, though? I laugh softly to myself and realize how little I care about being sneaky just now. I walk straight up to a group of white-armored troops. They point their blasters at me warily.

"Put those away, fools," I say, waving a hand.

"Who are you?" says one of them.

"I am Darth Revan," I say. "I understand that there is another Sith Lord aboard this battle station, is there not?"

"Y-Yes..." Behind that helmet, he's probably frowning in confusion, I imagine. "I don't recognize that name."

"You will take me to this would-be Dark Lord of the Sith," I command. "Take me to Darth Vader."

"I will take you to the detention block, and Lord Vader will come and interrogate you on his own time."

I snort softly. Luck is never on my side, and today, I'm not having much luck in getting Force persuasion to work even on weak-minded fools like this. What kind of a Sith Lord am I? I don't have the time or patience to just let them capture me and wait for Vader... and I don't want to fight him in a confined space, unarmed, either.

_He betrayed and murdered your father._

Lightning crackles around me. I grit my teeth, trying to retain control over my rage and hate. Killing these fools would not serve any purpose, I tell myself, and it might wind up with me getting killed again, which would be annoying.

"Um... I'll escort you to him at once, Lord Revan," the stormtrooper says.

Smart man, obviously realized just from that outburst that I'm exactly what I claim to be. As he takes me off to meet with Vader, I make note of where we're going. I will find him myself next time.

"My minions say that you call yourself Darth Revan," Vader says, the sneer in his voice practically audible. "Why are you here?"

"To challenge you," I reply, pulling out my lightsabers.

"I see," Vader says, bringing out his own red lightsaber. "Very well. Strange, I had expected the presense of another... no matter. It was you who I sensed, then."

Maybe my distraction here will allow the others to escape unscathed. I don't really care too much about that right now, though. The object of my hate is standing before me, and I will destroy him, or die trying. Repeatedly, if need be.

I throw myself at my enemy. Our lightsabers spark and crackle as they strike one another. Green against red, and red trying to land a lethal blow. He's good, I'll give him that. I don't think I've seen anyone half as skilled as him since Vrook, and Vrook was a Jedi. I might even be enjoying this fight but for the intense all-consuming hate that's flowing through me.

"Yes, I can feel your hate..." Vader says. "The Dark Side has made you strong." With a flick of his free hand, a large box strikes me in the back, and I fall. "But not strong enough," he adds.

My red lightsaber went flying out of my hand. I bring myself up to one knee and parry desperately with my green one.

"Submit to my superior strength, and I may permit you to live and serve me," Vader says.

"I'd sooner die," I growl.

Vader clearly has the upper hand now. For all my combat prowess, I can't hold him off for long.

* * *

I wake on the Millennium Falcon with renewed rage. _I_ am the greatest warrior of my time. How dare he best me with dirty Force tricks! In a fair fight, I'm sure I'd win.

But he's a Sith Lord, and he's not the only one. That _is_ a fair fight among Sith. I should return the favor in kind and not hold anything back.

Once we land on the Death Star, I stalk straight to where I found him before. I'm not even stopped by any stormtroopers. Perhaps my Force powers are working this time to make them not notice me, or they just _really_ don't want to bother an obvious Dark Jedi meeting with their master.

"Who are you?" Darth Vader demands when I come in. "Did the Emperor send you?"

"No one commands me but myself," I reply. "I am Darth Revan, the true Dark Lord of the Sith, and I am here to kill you!"

If only I'd been able to be around for the last few millennia in order to prevent the Sith from rising again. I could have stopped all of this before it even began. But would it have really mattered? Alderaan would argue otherwise. As would my father.

I fight in a blind rage, throwing everything I have against Vader and holding nothing back. Force lightning erupts all around me, destroying everything in the room. I have him on the ropes, and then, on the cusp of my triumph, in the midst of a mighty surge of lightning... the world goes dark.

* * *

I wake again in confusion and frustration. What happened? Did some sneaky attack kill me from behind? Or was my body unable to sustain the overload of electricity coming from me? I suspect it was the latter. That burst had been stronger than anything I'd attempted before, powered by untold levels of fury, and it _hurt_ coming through, even though I was ignoring the pain at the time in my anger.

I'd been avoiding the others on the previous couple loops, unwilling to let them see me in full Dark Side mode, but this time I manage to steady myself a little and go out to where they are.

"You seem troubled, Lexen," Obi-Wan says.

"It's Vader," I say quietly.

"You think he was responsible for what we sensed earlier?" Obi-Wan asks.

"He's destroyed Alderaan," I say. "The entire planet. Everyone on it."

Obi-Wan looks a bit alarmed. "You've seen this?"

I nod tersely. Easier to let him think it was a Force vision or something than to explain exactly what it is about me, and I don't really care at the moment anyway.

"There is much anger in you," Obi-Wan says softly, glancing furtively aside to Luke, who isn't paying attention to us at the moment. "Revenge is not the way of the Jedi."

"I know," I whisper. "It's been a long time since I've been a real Jedi, though. Less long since I was a Sith Lord, and I'm not even really that anymore, either."

"The Dark Side will consume you if you are unwary," Obi-Wan says. "You would not be the first Skywalker destroyed because of it."

My eyes flash in anger, and I reply coldly, "I know." I take a deep breath. "I'm going to kill him. I will not be dissuaded from this path."

"No, Lexen," Obi-Wan says urgently. "You must not do this. If you kill Vader, you will become like him-"

"I'm _already_ like him," I snap. "It doesn't matter what happens to me now. I kill him. I then kill myself, or you kill me, or something. I don't care anymore. Get rid of us both, and leave the damned galaxy in peace."

Obi-Wan stares at me for a long moment, and says, "There is a flaw in that plan. There would still be the Emperor, you realize."

I sigh. "Fine. I'll kill Vader, kill the damned Emperor, kill myself, then there'll be no more fucking Sith in the galaxy and everyone's happy."

"This is not the way to do this," Obi-Wan says.

And then we drop out of hyperspace, leaving it a moot point whatever outcome this discussion might have led to.

Abord the Death Star, once the stormtroopers are gone, I'm about to head off to confront Vader again. Obi-Wan tries one last time to dissuade me, but I'm not even listening to him anymore.

Vader looks over at me when I arrive and demands to know who I am and why I'm here. I'm a bit calmer and more stable than I was before, even if I'm still set on this path. I'm not going to blow up and destroy myself in a futile attempt at revenge.

"My name is Lexen Skywalker," I reply. "And I am here to kill you."

"Lexen Skywalker, is it," Vader replies, looking me over appraisingly for only a moment before my red lightsaber swipes at him, and he parries with his own. "The Dark Side has made you strong, I see."

"Strong enough to kill you?" I say with a smirk. I'm in control now. I am the eye of the storm. Fighting with all the skill I have, using my emotions to give me strength rather than sending me spiraling to my doom. And I'm enjoying the fight. It's sheer pleasure to battle one so skilled as this.

"I do not see why you wish to kill me," Darth Vader says, deflecting a blow. "Together, we could overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together."

I snort softly and swing in to strike at him again. "Been there, done that. I have no interest in ruling the galaxy again."

"Then why do you seek to kill me?"

"Because," I say with a soft growl. "Revenge. That's all. Nothing more than simple revenge. You killed my father, you son of a bitch."

"Did Obi-Wan tell you that?" Vader asks.

I pause, stepping back into a defensive posture in case he tries to take advantage of my confusion to attack me himself. I realize that I have no proof that this is true. For all I know, it was actually Obi-Wan who murdered my father.

"If you have something to say, then I am listening," I say warily.

"Lexen," Vader says, lowering his lightsaber. "_I_ am your father."

I stare at him, stunned, for several long moments. "Is this another lie?" I ask. "How can I trust that?"

"You look just like her," Vader says. "Your mother. Anara Chelseer. I haven't thought about her in a very long time."

I cannot formulate a response. There are no words. I let out a heavy sigh, close my eyes for a moment, and then put my lightsabers away. "You're right," I say quietly. "I have no reason to want to kill you."

My eyes are blinded in tears welling up as the full realization hits me. I've finally found him. My father... How long has it been that I searched for him, and he was here, and I never knew it?

And all my fears that he would be disappointed in me, and yet, we went down the same path after all...

"How did you come to be here?" Vader asks.

"It's... a long story," I say quietly.

* * *

The two of us exchange our stories, telling of our own convoluted paths that have led us to where we are now. In the meantime, the Millennium Falcon escapes without me, but I don't really care. I've found what I was looking for. And it seems my father isn't too concerned, either, as he had a tracking device planted on it to find the Rebels.

He tells me about my mother and their torrid, if brief, affair. And then, after she disappeared, about his ill-fated romance with one Padme Amidala. I tell him about my travels through time, show him the mask I wore as Darth Revan, and describe wars long forgotten. We both found our own ways to the Dark Side and were betrayed by those we had trusted.

As we're dropping out of hyperspace into the Yavin system, I say softly, "You regret it, don't you."

"This is hardly the time to speak of regrets," Vader replies, looking at the tactical readouts.

"They're going to kill us," I say with a faint smile.

"That's not possible," says a human man, one of my father's generals or something I suppose. I don't know what his name is. I don't _care_ what his name is. "This battle station is invincible, and they only have a handful of small craft to throw at us."

"They're going to destroy this battle station," I say matter-of-factly. "I don't need to convince you of it. Now, be silent. I am speaking to my father."

The Rebel fighters come out, and Vader's minions realize that there's a possible weakness that they could exploit, but they refuse to retreat in their moment of triumph.

"Father," I say softly. "What is your greatest regret?"

"You know how this battle will end," Vader says.

I shake my head. "All I know are possibilities. The same that any reasoning mind could ascertain. People can't see the future, because the future isn't set in stone. There is no fate but what we make ourselves."

"What do you mean?" Vader asks.

"It's our own choices that define our future," I say. "We can always choose another path."

"It's too late for us, I think," Vader says quietly, staring at the fighters on the screen.

"Never," I say, smiling sadly. "Even as doom bears down upon us, there is hope. There is _always_ hope."

"I... regret..." Vader says haltingly.

Hope and regret. I call upon my Time powers, letting them well up within me, filling me and surrounding me, and embracing my father with them. I will send him back. I will return him to the moment of his greatest regret. To the moment when he could make a different choice, take a different path, make a different future. Let him have a second chance. It matters little to me what he chooses to do with it. But this... this is why I am here. I have come so far, across space and time, to find my father... and somehow, I think I knew what I would find.

_Hope and regret._

A cascade of pure blue light washes through the air for the briefest of moments even as the Death Star explodes around us.


	3. A Thousand Regrets

**A/N: An earlier version of this chapter was posted for a while under the title "Stormseeker: New Futures". This version is a bit different, however.**

* * *

I wake. I'm not sure where I am at first. But at least I know my name. I am Lexen Skywalker. The Stormseeker. Darth Revan. Dark Lord of the Sith, Gray Lord of the Elkandu, harbinger of regret and bearer of hope.

And I hope that wherever and whenever my father ended up, he's happy.

My body is much smaller than I am used to. I'm a child again? How strange. I can't be older than ten or eleven. Frowning a little, I get up and go outside, making my way through corridors that seem like they should be familiar, and out into the open air.

The sky swirls purple and black overhead. Glowing cyan runes light the streets. Strange beings wander the area. And the feeling here, the Force is alive here like I have never felt anywhere else. It's so strong that the air is practically dripping with it, saturated to the point of bursting. It's like I'm inside the very heart of the Force.

I know this place.

I _know_ this place.

This is Torn Elkandu. The center of the multiverse. This is where it all began. This is where I died for the very first time, and discovered that I could not die.

How did I even get back here? How did I get sent so far back in time to the day when I first died? I feel like this should not be surprising to me, somehow. But I cannot remember. I cannot really remember. Thoughts slip away at my attempts to grasp them.

I wander around Torn Elkandu for some time, exploring, looking into every nook and cranny, trying to jog my memory. But most of these things, I cannot remember ever having seen them before. Finally I sigh and come toward the middle of the city, to the heart of everything, to the Nexus.

Eight obelisks covered in glowing runes curve upward toward the sky, and the purple and black overhead almost seems to swirl around this place. Everything points to here. This is where all the power leads. There's so much energy here that I feel like I could go anywhere and do anything.

A woman stands at the Nexus, watching over things with glazed silver eyes. Auburn hair falls around her long, pointed ears, and I feel like I should know her, as well. What was her name? Keolah. Keolah the Seeker. The founder of the Elkandu. The one who started this all.

"Hello, Stormseeker," Keolah says, finally noticing me. "Where would you like to go today?"

What kind of a question is that? Where do I want to go? I barely even know what's going on here. And the only place I can really remember in more than scraps and fragments is the universe that I just came out from. The universe of my father, where all my hopes were dashed to pieces... and yet, I find no sorrow in that, and can only hope that I've given my father a chance at a better future.

"I don't know," I say after a few moments.

"Well, if you're looking for something, I can probably find it for you."

I sigh softly and give a sad smile. "I'm looking for answers to questions that cannot be answered. I'm looking for dreams that cannot be grasped. I'm looking for a future that cannot exist."

"Do not be so quick to dismiss things as impossible, Stormseeker."

"Why not? It's the truth."

"Whether or not it's true is irrelevant," Keolah says. "If you believe something to be impossible, what hope do you have of ever achieving it?"

"That is why I fail," I whisper.

How did it come to this? How much have I truly lost? When I left behind my father's home universe, I had no hope for myself, and only hope to give. And now I'm back here. Back in a place that I barely remember. How many other universes have I visited and forgotten? What lessons might I have learned there and lost? What friends might I have seen die, forever slipping away from me, lost in the depths of time?

The runes on the Nexus activate, glowing brightly for a few moments as the circle within fills with shimmering mists. When the fog receeds, a single figure steps out of the Nexus. A very pale man clad in black robes, distinctly reminding me of Emperor Palpatine.

But something in the back of my mind tells me that this is different. This is not quite what happened before. What changed?

"Stormseeker," the man addresses me. "What have you done?"

Sardill is his name. The Dark Knight, he is called. That is his title, even as mine is the Stormseeker. And I remember seeing him killing me, again and again and again.

_You don't get it, do you, fool. Try again, Stormseeker._

_You are not in a position where you can understand my purpose. Try again, Stormseeker._

_Try again, Stormseeker._

"Are you going to tell me to try again?" I ask.

"So you at least remember something," Sardill replies. "But your mind is damaged. Your soul is damaged. What have you done to yourself?"

"Why should you care?"

"You are a fool. You were to be the instrument of our salvation. But if you cannot do it, then I must find another course."

"What are you talking about, salvation?" I say. "You've killed me how many times, for the sake of _salvation_?"

"You understand nothing," Sardill snaps. "I had hoped, after all I've forced you through, that you might have gleaned some small measure of ability. But... hmm... Perhaps there is still some hope for you after all. Yes. Yes, I see. For all you've forgotten, you wound up learning things that you were incapable of before because you never considered them possible."

"What are you talking about?" I say. "Do you mean sending others back in time?"

"Yes. But it's just scratching the surface. It's just getting started. There is a long, long way you have to go yet. And yet, now you've even forgotten what started you upon this path. That motivation was clearly not enough to keep your mind from breaking under the strain, however. So perhaps you need something more. Perhaps you are finally ready to comprehend why you are doing this, why I have put you through all of this."

"I would very much like to find out."

Sardill raises his hand toward me. "First, I must repair the damage to your soul. This much I can do, without disrupting the balance too badly."

"Very well," I say, nodding to him.

I don't know why I should trust him. But I get the feeling that, if he truly ever wished to destroy me, there wouldn't be much I could do about it. I can feel the power within him, the raw Force radiating from him like a supernova. He is so far above my level, even as powerful as I am, that he makes even the Sith Emperor of the ancient times pale in comparison. The being before me is the closest thing I know to a deity.

There's a tingling sensation as energy rushes through me, and then burns, like fire and ice in my veins. I gasp at the feeling, and I sense something within me shifting. Like broken pieces, repairing themselves, mending the shattered fragments, restoring what had been torn apart.

When it is done, and Sardill withdraws his power, I feel lightheaded. I feel _whole_ again. I had not even realized just how tattered and torn I had become.

"Thank you," I say quietly.

Sardill nods to me. "You may not thank me yet by the time we are done here today."

"Show me what you have to show me."

"You must see it for yourself," Sardill says. I feel him linking his power to me, binding it temporarily. "I assume that you have learned how to see the future through the Force?"

"Mostly just myself dying and going back," I reply dryly. "I mistook that for Force visions at first, until I realized what was actually happening."

Sardill rolls his eyes in disgust. "Did you ever actually learn to view the future without actually going there yourself?"

"The future isn't set in stone," I say. "There are many possibilities. Different things can happen. Different choices can be made."

"Yes. But I suppose I will have to guide you to the future I am from, myself."

"You are from the future?" I ask.

"Why do you think I have done all of this? It's certainly not because I get my jollies from being evil. Come. Let us take a little trip down the future that I have seen with my own eyes. The Nexus shall be our Pensieve, and we shall see what I have seen."

"You spoke of salvation," I say. "Is there some disaster awaiting us?"

"You shall see," Sardill says, and the world swirls around me.

We're in another place. A place very much like Torn Elkandu, and yet different, darker, the runes are red, the sky is red and black.

"What is this place?" I ask.

"Drakanna. The headquarters of the Drakandu, whom you know in this time as the Dark Elkandu."

"They made their own Nexus?"

"Yes. But it didn't last."

Swirling images. A blizzard on a mountainside kills many of the Drakandu. Flashes of light, mushroom clouds rising into the air. The Nexus in Drakanna destabilizes and goes dark. A world is torn apart by war.

"Is this the disaster awaiting the Elkandu?"

"No," Sardill says. "This was the Elkandu Crisis. But we recovered from this."

Many leave Torn Elkandu for a time. Keolah goes to a huge city, where she is worshipped as a goddess. She has a son there, with glowing blue eyes, who turns out to be an incarnation of Shazmar, the Blue Star, a deity in and of himself.

But things change. Tensions between the Elkandu factions escalate, and more factions break off, each of them with their own ideals. They return to Torn Elkandu, but they keep it as neutral ground, no longer fighting over it or making their own Nexi.

"The Age of Rogue Winds," Sardill says. "It was not a peaceful time. But it was stable enough, despite influences otherwise."

Faces I don't recognize, fighting, sometimes dying. One I am gratified to see is Sedder, the one who first killed me, slain by my own great-grandfather, Silver. Silver was his friend, and was forced to strike down Sedder, who had completely lost his mind.

And things still change. The old factions dissolve, and new ones rise instead. The new ones are called Whitefire, Conclave, Darkhammer, and Tempest. They each have different goals and motivations, but they all fight fiercely.

Tempest seeks to bring chaos to the universe, in the name of freedom. Some members of this faction, led by a powerful Changer, forge a strange purple device called the Wheel of Chaos. Black lightning shoots out from it as it spins. And the universe is torn asunder.

"Was this, then, the disaster you mentioned?"

"This was the Planar Wars," Sardill says. "A dark time for the Elkandu. But we recovered from this."

I can't see how anyone could recover from something like this. Reality itself has been broken. Worlds shift and change like dreams. Pieces of flotsam drift in an ethereal sea, lost shards of what once was. If this wasn't the end that Sardill fears, what could it possibly have been?

Then figures emerge from the chaos. A glowing, runed sword, Zarnith, the sword of my ancestors, breaks the Wheel of Chaos. Eventually, piece by piece, the universe is repaired, restored to some semblance of what it once was. And, as it turns out, it wasn't really the entire universe at all, but merely Lezaria and its vicinity. Much as I hated to see my homeworld in such a state, the disaster was far more localized than it had seemed at first.

And, no sooner are they released from the Chaos that had embroiled them do the Elkandu start another war with one another. The faction war starts up again as if it had never ceased.

"They're already fighting again?" I say incredulously. "You'd think they'd have learned their lesson after that."

"The War of Planar Dominance," Sardill says. "If you haven't noticed by now, the Elkandu _never learn_."

Many die in this conflict, but I don't recognize them. I don't know these people. Many of them were born after my time. And then, in the end, the factions are broken one by one. The secretive Watchers are swept away in a decisive strike by Tempest. Whitefire is brought down by my great-grandmother, Hawthorne, whom they had tried to hold prisoner. Darkhammer is betrayed from within by its own second-in-command. In the end, Conclave surrenders to Tempest, who proceeds to party and forget that they even rule the universe now.

"Why did Conclave surrender?"

"Because they realized that Tempest would do nothing," Sardill said. "They ended the war. And Tempest no longer had reason to fight. So they ended up dissolving. Only Conclave survived the faction war."

"Wait. Is that _me_?"

I stare incredulously at a man who looks distressingly like me, sitting in Tempest's headquarters, completely drunk. And conjuring more alcohol, enough to flood the entire castle.

"Yes, Stormseeker. That is you. Look at what you've become."

I gape. I can't believe this. "I turn into a drunken idiot?"

"Do you find this surprising?" Sardill says wryly. "You so often have turned to substance abuse when you can't deal with your own problems. You've sought the oblivion of drink when you could not handle your own Time Magic abilities. I know how it is. I've been there myself. There are times when I would welcome oblivion." He shakes his head. "You could have been so much more, but you made the world go away, and you were nothing. You were forgotten. The greatest Time Mage that ever lived, turned into this."

I still can't believe this. I shake my head, closing my eyes in denial of what I see before me.

"I should have known, from the way you reacted to it all here, that your mind would not be able to handle what I demanded of you," Sardill goes on. "I should have known that you were too weak, and would break under the pressure. But I was desperate, and despite that, you were my best hope. I just had to mold you into something better, and make you something stronger, give you reason to fight. It was clearly not enough, however."

"I am not weak," I say, clenching my fist and opening my eyes to stare at him, hard.

"Aren't you? You certainly could have fooled me."

"I am _not_ weak," I snarl. "And I will _not_ turn into... into _this_!"

"So determined, are you, to avoid the destiny that awaits you?"

"There is no such thing as destiny. There is no future that we do not make ourselves. There are always choices."

"So be it," Sardill says, shrugging. "It will remain to be seen. Let us continue on."

Even with the War of Planar Dominance done with, the Elkandu are not finished with fighting. It's not over factions any longer, however. Now, as they start to fight over one Dreamwalker by the name of Tarna, eight timelines are somehow merged into one.

"Was this the disaster you hoped I could avert?"

"No," Sardill replies. "This was the Temporal Convergence. Resulting from the whims of a bored god. It confused things a good deal, but we recovered from this."

And all but one of these Tarnas wind up dying in some way. The insane telepath Jami holes away in his basement to bother no one any longer, after causing havoc upon the universe for centuries.

Things are not settled for long, however. A fleet descents upon Lezaria, killing millions of people. A plague spreads in the northern realms. A horde of green-skinned humanoids strikes another one of the Elkandu worlds.

"Was this the disaster?" I ask.

"The Interdimensional Bridge had opened," Sardill says. "It allowed easy travel between universes. But we recovered from this, although it required extraordinary measures. The Orks were repelled. The Black Fleet moved on to other targets."

Flying monkeys fight against Chaos Marines, fighting tooth and nail to defend their precious trees. Many of them die, and they probably only succeed because the Chaos army didn't actually care about the forest to begin with.

"They were not the real threat here, however. The Nameless Ones from Karzan were. Let me show you."

The Gods of Death from someplace called Karzan come forth, and destroy the universe. They destroy Karzan first, and then the Elkandu. In the end, they're stopped only by a group of people having escaped the destruction through time travel, who gather up a Circle of Nine in order to enact a Time-Change ritual. I see my future self among them, in a rare moment of relative sobriety.

Time itself has been changed somehow. The Black Crusade still invades, but the Nameless Ones are no more, and never were a threat now. I don't understand how they did it. It should be impossible to actually change time. Even if they just forged a new timeline for themselves, the old one should still be present. I start to understand why I turned to alcohol.

In the wake of the Black Fleet, Lezaria recovers. They had been called away to strike against another place, to Karzan. I'm not familiar with this place. But I pity whatever might come of this strike.

And Tarna appears again, and with the guidance of an elven jester god who reminds me distinctly of Shazmar, a blow is struck against Chaos that they cannot recover from. Their very gods are slain by a mighty figure of blood and flame, and the elvish harlequin laughs at their passing.

"With the Interdimensional Bridge open, a cluster of four different universes became closely intertwined," Sardill explains. "They were not merged, but what happened in one often affected the others, and travel between them became common for a time. As we can see from one of these worlds..."

A demonic figure rises out from the darkness, a black-furred werewolf, and his name is Jez'kai, the leader of the Black Spiral Dancers. He brings forth a ritual that requires sacrifice of an entire city in hopes of manifesting a great evil into the world. But instead of completing it, he decides on a whim to try to corrupt the leader of the Gaians instead, a Silver Fang called Lucian. In the wake of this, Lucian somehow becomes the new deity of this world. He seals Jez'kai within a soultrap, and gives it to a werewolf named Rettah, who was originally from my own universe.

"That should have been the end of that problem, shouldn't it?" I say.

"It should," Sardill agrees.

Rettah is exiled back to Torn Elkandu, and she decides not to resurrect her former master, but to hand the soultrap off to Shazmar instead. Shazmar decides to bring Jez'kai out himself for some "fun".

"Oh, that was a terrible idea."

"Shazmar's good at terrible ideas," Sardill says.

"I resemble that remark," says a blond young elf, suddenly appearing beside us.

"Go away, Shazmar," Sardill says offhandedly. "Nobody likes you. Not even your future you."

The future Shazmar gets extremely frustrated that Jez'kai won't play the games like he wants him to, throws a tantrum, and vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Mmmaybe that wasn't one of my more shining moments," the present Shazmar says. At least I think he's the present Shazmar. Although all things considered, between the time travel and deities, it's hard to be sure, assuming it even matters anyway.

"Shazmar, you great buffoon, you realize that this was all your fault?" Sardill snaps, casting a hard glare upon the child deity. "You caused the Temporal Convergence. You opened the Interdimensional Bridge. You resurrected Jez'kai and set him loose again. It took stupidity of deific proportions to bring about the disaster!"

I've never seen Sardill actually angry before. Actually fuming, raging, furiously angry. At this moment, he looks like he could rip Shazmar apart with his bare hands. Even Shazmar looks a little leery at this.

"Um... I'm sorry?" Shazmar says sheepishly.

"Not. Good. Enough," Sardill grates. "And let me show you why."

Jez'kai goes to the next universe over, to Karzan, and makes himself a god there by sacrificing the entire planet Earth. In the wake of Shazmar's abandoning the place, Keolah, Hawthorne, and a woman named Suzcecoz have been left in charge of my universe. Suzcecoz is going insane trying to control everything, however, and she goes to ask Jez'kai for advice, and winds up happily handing the reigns over to him.

"That was stupid," I say.

"Yes, it was," Sardill agrees.

Jez'kai is now the god of both the Karzan and Elkandu universes. Torn Elkandu is shut down, the Nexus going dark and the place entirely sealed off from outside influences.

"Surely this must be the disaster you talked about," I say.

"Not yet," Sardill says. "Not just yet. But we're getting close."

There is a powerful vampire hunter by the name of Falk, who is himself a vampire. He is sent to kill the kitsune Inari, whom Jez'kai had done something horrible to. Falk gets captured by Jez'kai, but I get the impression that he allowed himself to be captured. After killing Inari, he hangs around talking, almost seeming to be waiting for Jez'kai to show up.

Jez'kai brings Falk to Suzcecoz, in her castle that was once Tempest's headquarters. She convinces Jez'kai to allow her to keep the hunter as a pet and servant. Jez'kai corrupts Falk with demonic energies, transforming him into a monstrous creature.

"Suzcecoz knew what was coming," Sardill says quietly. "She may be foolish, but she's not entirely stupid."

Falk bides his time, making like a good, loyal servant. And then, when the time is right, he makes his move. He asks Jez'kai for access to a little extra power in order to deal with a problem that he secretly created himself. With that, in one sudden strike, he digs his roots in and takes over control of the universe.

"How did he do that?" I wonder.

"He used a trojan horse through the backdoor Jez'kai provided in order to hack root access to the universe," Shazmar says. "And then changed the passwords to lock Jez'kai out again."

"He what?" I say, blinking.

"Shazmar enjoys using arcane programming metaphors," Sardill says, rolling his eyes.

"Well, I got what he meant, anyway," I say.

"This was it," Sardill says. "This was the disaster I told you about."

"This?" I say, raising an eyebrow. "This Falk fellow didn't seem like a bad sort to me. I would have thought Jez'kai would have been worse."

"Yes, but Falk hates the Elkandu," Sardill says. "See what he does now."

Not only does Falk keep Torn Elkandu locked down, but he utterly kills the power levels of the universe. Most Elkandu have access to very little magic. And he shuts off Time Magic, and rebirth... He's brought death to people who had long been used to the idea of their own immortality. People grow old, and when they die, they stay dead.

Needless to say, I really don't like that idea very much.

"Sith's blood, why would he do such a thing?" I say, frowning.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that I'm not a good person. I'd let the universe burn to save myself, and I know it. But this threatens me as well. If this future comes to pass, my Time Magic will be shut down, and I will die a real, final death.

"I won't let this happen," I say fiercely.

"You think you can stop him?" Sardill says.

"I think I can stop this future from coming to pass," I say.

"Too late," Sardill says with a smirk. "It already has."

"I'm not even in that time frame. I'm five hundred years in the past still. Aren't I?"

"You know that he also shut down branching timelines?" Sardill says. "My meddling was the only reason why new timelines were being split off with your power. The ones that you split off are the only ones that exist now."

"Really bothersome, let me tell you," Shazmar puts in. "That wasn't how the universe was supposed to be set up."

"How?" I breathe. "How did you come back to give me a push?"

"I was outside the universe when he took over," Sardill says.

"I need to stop this," I say, shaking my head. "I can't let this happen!"

"You're not ready-" Sardill begins.

"No!" I say. "I'm damned well ready. Enough is enough. You didn't show me all this just to tell me I'm not ready. Why the fuck didn't you tell me about all of this in the first place? Instead of _killing me_ over and over and putting me through hell?"

"You had to learn," Sardill says quietly. "You were a child. You could not have understood, then. You had to grow, and there was so much that you had to learn."

"And what have I learned?" I retort. "I learned that I couldn't handle it and forgot everything, again and again!"

"And yet learn you did," Sardill says.

I shake my head and sigh. "And I didn't stop any of this, and just became a useless drunk instead. I suppose I can't blame you too much for forcing me off of that path, even if I don't like the means you used to go about it."

"Do you really think you are ready for this, Stormseeker?" Sardill asks. "I can send you off now to a thousand more lives, where you might actually keep remembering and be able to learn and build your power to the point of reaching the skill level you will need for this."

"I'm not backing down, Sardill," I say.

Magic swirls around me, rippling in the air, disorienting me. My head is spinning, and I stagger, trying to steady myself.

"I could destroy you, you know," Sardill says. "I could take your power from you, and find someone who is more mentally stable to accomplish this instead."

I scream at him in wordless defiance. Time seems to slow down around me as I realize in an instant that he _could_ do this, he could follow through on this sort of threat. And I'm not going to let him. I will show him that I'm not a complete failure. I will - I _must_ - prevent this future from coming to pass.

I reach out with my Time Magic power. My power to change the past is based off regret. My own regret is pretty damned strong, but it's not enough for what I must do. I seek out the strongest sources of regret across the multiverse, across space and time. I don't know most of their names, but I can feel their emotions, outwelling like a fountain of remorse, willing to give up their lives for the slightest chance at a second chance, a hope for a better future.

Blue lightning crackles across my vision, shoots across time, rips across the universe.

"Wow, he's actually invoking the Trayziak Tatalyar," Shazmar murmurs. "The universe is splitting..."

_CRACK-A-DOOM!_

One thousand broken dreams...

The hope of a thousand worlds...

The regret of a thousand souls...

My vision blurs and fades, and the world slips away into darkness.


	4. A Thousand Hopes

I wake. I feel like I've been asleep for a very long time. Where am I? Oh. Torn Elkandu. The School of Thought dormitories again. Where I always start out. And the same time that I always wake up. Where I've died and returned to a thousand times before, no doubt.

I get up and go out toward the Nexus. Everything looks the same as it was before. Keolah is standing there, staring off absently at nothing.

"Keolah," I say. "Do you think it is possible to change time?"

"I don't know. But if you say that something is impossible, then what hope do you have of achieving it? I imagine that, when it comes down to it, anything is possible. A wise man once said, 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"Keolah, that man was a comedian," I say with a grin. "You know that, don't you?"

Keolah shrugs. "Perhaps he had a point, though."

"Perhaps," I say.

I feel like I'm in no great rush. I take a stroll around Torn Elkandu, pop into random classes at the School of Thought, and relax for a bit. When the six hour mark approaches, I return to the Nexus to wait. There is much that I would ask Sardill.

Six hours passes. The Nexus remains dormant. The runes don't light up, the mists don't appear. Neither Sardill nor any of his Dark Elkandu appear in Torn Elkandu.

"Were you expecting someone?" Keolah asks.

"I... well, maybe," I say.

"If you're looking for someone, perhaps I could scry and find them, see if something has delayed them," Keolah says. "Who were you waiting for?"

"Sardill," I reply.

Keolah raises an eyebrow at me. "Dare I wonder why?"

I shrug. "I had things to speak of with him."

"It's really none of my business, anyway," Keolah says. "I'll find him for you." Her eyes glaze over, and she stares off into space for several long moments as I wait for her. Finally, she shakes her head. "I can't find him."

"_You_ can't find him?" I say incredulously.

"Either he's blocking my power somehow... or he no longer exists in this universe."

I remember how he pushed me into using my power, but what really happened there? What did he really do?

"I'll go look for him," I say.

I know where he might be, if he's anywhere. When he was showing me the future, I saw Drakanna, the stronghold of the Dark Elkandu. I saw it well enough that I can use the Nexus to get there myself. I step into the ring of obelisks and concentrate on the image in my mind, and activate the teleporter.

When I arrive in Drakanna, I'm greeted by the face of my mother, Anara Chelseer. Her eyes are the same yellow-gold color as any darksider. How much time did she spend in my father's universe, I wonder? And what did she get up to while she was there that my father didn't know about?

"Lexen?" she asks. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you," I reply, shrugging. "But I don't really care. I'm looking for Sardill. Have you seen him?"

"He should be in the main building over there," Anara says, pointing. "Have you come to join us, Lexen?"

"No," I say. "I just need to speak with him about something."

I enter the building that she'd indicated and look around. I don't see Sardill anywhere around. But I see Sedder, sitting at a table and staring into a mug. Inexplicable rage boils up within me, and I find myself clenching my fists and barely restraining myself from attacking him.

"Lexen," Sedder says quietly. "I should have expected you would come."

"I don't want to talk to you, Sedder," I grit. "Where's Sardill?"

"He's not here."

"Where is he, then?"

Sedder shakes his head. "Gone. He didn't come back with us."

"What do you mean?"

Sedder looks at me for a long moment, and then turns to stare off at nothing. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"What, you? _You_ are apologizing to me?"

"I know what you did," Sedder says. "You asked for my regret, and you asked for my life, and I gave them both gladly. And then the universe changed."

"What could _you_ have possibly regretted?" I wonder.

"You have no idea what I've been through, Lexen," Sedder says. There's no ire in his voice, but weariness, the voice of someone who has seen too much death and loss, too much hate and grief. I'm surprised to find something I so clearly understand in one I had hated myself so much.

"No. I don't. And you don't know what I have. Where is Sardill?"

"I told you, he's gone," Sedder says. "And nothing will ever be the same again."

"What happened to that timeline?" I wonder. "What happened with Falk?"

"I don't know. Let me... let me see..." He closes his eyes for a few moments. "I think it's still there. But there's a barrier between that timeline and the one we're now in. I think Shazmar himself is keeping us safe here, or perhaps someone has isolated that section of the multiverse to prevent it from interfering with anything outside of it."

"So... we're safe," I say. "There's no way that future is going to come to pass. Wait a minute, since when are you a Time Mage?"

Sedder smirks at me. "Since I wished for it as my reward for winning an event in one of the Grand Elkandu Magic Competitions."

"Competitions?" I say dumbly. "You have got to be joking."

"And you wished for Beer Magic," Sedder says.

"Okay, that I can believe." I sigh and take a seat at the table across from him. I still don't like him. But we're in the same boat, and Sardill isn't here. We've seen the future. "So, what's going to happen now?"

"Now?" Sedder says. "Now... we build a better future. I think I'll shut down Drakanna before the Elkandu Crisis hits us. Send everyone back home. There's no need for war. I don't remember why we were even fighting."

"But you were exiled from Torn Elkandu," I say. "What are you going to do?"

Sedder stares off and gives a quirk of a smile. "I think I'll go to the World of Darkness, and see if I can find a kitsune by the name of Fantasia..."

"You... you lost her, didn't you," I say softly. "That was what you regretted."

"Jez'kai took her," Sedder says quietly. "And when my daughter found out that I'd once, briefly, made a deal with Jez'kai, she turned against me. I'd made a deal with Jez'kai to hand over Fantasia as my slave, you see. And then I fell in love with her. I wanted to keep her safe from him... and I failed."

"But, I thought you died," I say. "Silver killed you, before the Planar Wars, when you went mad..."

"I did," Sedder says. "I was reborn, under the name of Lomolen Shadowhand. Lomolen _Chelseer_."

"You? A Chelseer?" I say incredulously.

Sedder chuckles. "Imagine that, after how much I hated them, huh? I regained my memories, but Lomolen's personality was stubborn, and refused to let go. We couldn't integrate properly. I think that was slowly driving me mad as well. No, I speak wrongly. It wasn't that we couldn't integrate. It's that I refused to compromise. And Lomolen was no less stubborn. He was a good person, bound by honor, justice, loyalty. He could not abide by the things I was doing, and he did whatever he could to influence me, to temper me into a different path."

"What happened when you came back, then?"

"We both regretted what happened," Sedder says. "And we both... came back into the same body again."

"So, what?" I say. "You have two minds in one body?"

Sedder shakes his head. "We knew our mistake, last time. We weren't about to repeat it. We compromised, to make ourselves one again, to be whole again. I'm as much Lomolen as I am Sedder now."

I find it a little hard to swallow, the idea of Sedder, of all people, turning into a good person. But perhaps it isn't so far-fetched. Perhaps I should not judge him. It's not like I'm exactly a good person, either. It's not like I haven't murdered more people than I care to remember, myself.

It slowly starts to sink in that I have a future again. That Sardill is really gone, and Sedder is not going to be showing me up six hours after I wake up. Nothing will ever be the same again, indeed.

I've forgotten more things than most people will ever know. I've lived more lives than most will ever have the chance to see. And yet it feels like this is only the beginning.

"So, Lexen," Sedder says. "Out of curiosity... You're not really ten years old, that much I can be sure of. Not now, not in this time, perhaps not ever."

"I'm sure I must have actually been ten at some point," I say, smirking. "But I don't remember it anymore."

"Tell me. Have you ever been in love?" Sedder asks.

"Yes," I say quietly.

"Would you cross time and space, set the universe on fire, all for the sake of one person?" Sedder says.

"Not one person," I say. "Not just one person. Things would have been so much simpler if it had only been one person."

"Ah," Sedder says, nodding. "There was more than one person in my own history, as well. But the universe moved on, and everything changed. Armina and Adrienna are gone. And Fantasia... maybe I can still find her again. I don't know. Do you believe in soulmates? In people destined to be together?"

"No," I reply. "There's no destiny but what we make ourselves. There are, however, perhaps people whose personality is... compatible with our own."

Sedder snickers. "I suppose that's one way of putting it. Fantasia and I were... compatible. But it wasn't just Sedder, nor just Lomolen. Sedder was too amoral, and Lomolen was too straightlaced."

"You're speaking of yourself in the third person," I point out.

"So I am," Sedder says, shrugging. "Easier that way. Maybe I should go back to using my birth name. Tennar Deller. I'm not Sedder anymore, and Lomolen has not yet been born."

"And I'm not Darth Revan anymore," I say.

"Darth Revan? I sense that there's a story behind that."

"That there is," I reply. "But I don't think I care to tell it now. There are many stories behind me, most of which I have forgotten. But there are many more stories ahead of me, as well. I'm immortal, after all, and the universe hasn't yet found any way to kill me. Despite things attempting to suck out my soul or strip away my powers."

"Perhaps it's your power that's protecting itself. Perhaps it was willing and able to change time itself in order to prevent any danger to itself."

"Speculation," I say. "The will of the Force, perhaps?" I chuckle softly. "You'd think I would understand the Force better than I do. Magic, as you call it. My father's universe speaks of it like a living thing, with a will of its own."

"It seems a strange way to think about it. But perhaps they aren't wrong." He shrugs.

"I think I'll be going now," I say. "I have a lot to think about. And all the multiverse at my grasp."

"May your magic never falter, Stormseeker."

"And may yours find its favor."

I Recall back to the Nexus of Torn Elkandu, and stare up at the swirling purple sky for a long moment. It's like the shackles have been removed. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm finally free.

I throw back my head and start laughing. Free? And now what shall I do? Find a way to fix my shattered mind, that's what. It's a risky prospect, I know. I run the risk of losing the fragments that I already have.

But it's alright. I'm immortal. And I _know_ I'm not so weak as to turn into a lunatic drunk again. I have more faith in myself than that.

"Shazmar," I say quietly.

"What do you need, Stormseeker?" a small voice speaks in my mind.

"Not going to manifest yourself?"

"No. I've contained the situation, with some help. We'll... we'll make sure this doesn't damage the pattern of the multiverse too badly. But I've decided to pay penance for my mistakes. Sardill was right. It was entirely my own fault that this came to pass at all."

"Why, Shazmar?" I wonder. "Why did you do this all?"

"I just wanted to keep things interesting, to have a little fun, but things got out of hand, and beyond even my control."

I sigh. "And that's why all of this came to pass? Just for the sake of some fun? So many dead, so many suffering, so many souls lost?"

"I know. And that is why I pay penance. It's not enough. An eternity, perhaps, will be enough, to pay for those lost souls. Perhaps. How can you put a price upon a soul?"

"This never should have happened," I say.

"I know. I know. You won't see me again. Nor Sardill. Enjoy your future. Perhaps, in time, you can find favor with a power that isn't built upon regret."

I have to give a small smile at that. "Now that's a nice thought."

Life goes on. There will be a future, for me and for all of the Elkandu. Everything will be alright.

* * *

**A/N: And that concludes the Stormseeker Saga. There's any number of other things I could have written as well... but I think this is enough. More than enough. I never thought I'd actually wind up writing over a million words on this project.**

**Thanks for reading. I hope you've enjoyed the trip as much as I have.**

_**~ May your magic never falter. ~**_


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